Sunday 3rd May 2026
Blog Page 771

Iranian hackers steal sensitive Oxford research

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Iranian hackers steal sensitive Oxford research

Iranian hackers have stolen millions of sensitive documents from both Oxbridge universities in a targeted move at many universities worldwide.

The hacked papers are then sold online through WhatsApp to customers in Iran for as little as £2, as part of a global campaign linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, according to The Times.

The hackers, believed to be part of the Colbolt Dickens group operating out of Iran, have targeted 76 universities in 14 countries.

A spokesperson for Oxford University told Cherwell: “The University is aware of the claims, but we have confidence in the robust information security measures already in place.”

The hackers have been targeting unpublished research on sensitive topics including nuclear power, computer file encryption and cyber security, circumventing US sanctions on the sale of academic research to Iran.

The scam creates duplicates of each university’s login page, so students and academics hand over their account name and password believing they are logging in to the actual university website.

The discovery of the attacks by the IT company Secureworks comes just half a year after the US Department of Justice warned of Iranian hackers targeting universities.

A former MI5 and GCHQ officer, Dave Palmer, told The Telegraph: “Universities should be worrying about it.”

‘The Jungle’ Review — a somber celebration of solidarity, hope and resilience

Megan Simmonite
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‘The Jungle’ Review — a somber celebration of solidarity, hope and resilience

Leaving the theatre and walking straight into the first grey downpour of rain we had had in months never felt more fitting an atmosphere through which to hold back tears and fight the angry lump in the back of our throats that Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s The Jungle left us with.

The dimming of its lights transforms the playhouse theatre of London’s Embankment into the Afgan Cafe, once the heart of the refugee camp in Calais. Aided by the darkness, we are submerged into an atmosphere of chaos and distortion, emphasised by worried shouts and concerned voices in a multitude of languages.

This play starts at the end, the ruthless demolition of this powerless, yet strong community of people by bulldozers controlled by those so distanced that they think they are doing good. It then goes on to follow the journey of the camps formation, and subsequent demolition, whilst weaving in a few powerful stories of the individual refugees.

Murphy and Robertson persistently emphasise the fact that this camp is right on our doorstep, be this through the use of screens, the repetition of just how short a distance thirty miles is, or through the closeness of the Afgan Cafe and the White Cliffs of Dover. Here, the powerful set is worth paying some attention to. The stalls of the playhouse theatre have all been taken out, and replaced with a scattering of different style tables. The audience could either sit in the ‘Afgan Cafe’, submerged in the drama, sitting next to the actors and being served food, or up in the dress circle, which was renamed ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’.

The set also includes television screens scattered around the theatre, showing the audience real news reporting and images that they may remember seeing in the media. Towards the start of the play the images of Alan Kurdî‎, the three year old Syrian child who was found washed up on a Turkish beach after trying to reach Kos, were shown on these screens. The familiarity of these images, and their showing right at the start of the play, set the emotional tone.

Another powerful moment, that was made even more distinct by the use of the screens, was the reporting of the tragic day in November 2015, the day that terrorists killed 130 people in Paris, and the day that the refugee camp in Calais experienced a massive blaze. The televisions showed real reporting that claimed the two incidents were linked, thus sparking anger within the audience. However, Murphy and Richardson show the solidarity, hope and resilience, holding pray for Paris signs and exclaiming their outrage at the brutal murder of the 130 people, rather than focusing on the distorted and fake headlines.

Inevitably, we all rose to our seats as the play ended, yet this standing ovation was not married with a theatre of smiles and excitement; instead each hard and fierce clap had an angry, crying, or helpless face behind it. The wave of people leaving their seats was not just in appreciation of the play and actors, like it typically is, it was in solidarity. Solidarity with the optimistic yet silently broken refugees, solidarity with the frustrated volunteers, but most of all with each other, the feeling of uselessness, guilt and anger inescapable, compelling the audience to stand with one another. This play makes you feel like somebody has shaken you, simultaneously removing a self-inflicted veil from your eyes — it is not to be missed.

The Summer Movie Season: A Retrospective

Beata Kuczynska
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The Summer Movie Season: A Retrospective

The summer is over, and with it the ‘summer movie season’ has come to an end. From eagerly anticipated sequels, a horror movie dubbed ‘the scariest ever’ and a promising selection of comedies and dramas, there was a lot of potential for a fantastic season of movies, but how did it shape up?

Numerous sequels dominated the box office this summer, but perhaps the most highly anticipated summer sequel was Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. Despite some apprehension about this release (“Haven’t they used up all the good songs?!”), the movie achieved the fourth biggest opening of the year in the UK, and has received positive reviews from critics and cinemagoers alike. It could have been a massive flop, but its upbeat atmosphere, charming lead performance from Lily James, and feel-good tunes have made it a surprisingly good standalone piece of cinema rather than just a movie to placate die-hard fans of the original.

Pixar’s Incredibles 2 also performed very well at the box office, with adults and children flocking to view the long-awaited sequel. Released 14 years after the first, Incredibles 2 managed to retain the excitement, joy and humour of the original whilst bringing a new exciting story to the screen. Children were delighted and adults who adored the first showered it with praise. And Bao, a short film about a protective Chinese mother and her son which played before each screening, was an added quirky bonus for audiences. 

Avengers: Infinity War and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom were the big action sequels of the summer. Infinity War took in $640.5 million on its worldwide opening weekend, the biggest of all time, and has gone on to become the fourth highest grossing film of all time and the top grosser of 2018. It might not be my type of movie, but I can admire its sheer ambition, and it’s clear that critics and audiences responded well to it. Fallen Kingdom, the fifth entry in the Jurassic Park series, also raked in impressive amounts of money, grossing over $1.3 billion worldwide, despite the slightly disappointed response from many regular cinemagoers and committed Jurassic fans.

The Meg and Hereditary were the two big horror releases of the summer, but their similarities end there. The Meg is a horror comedy, starring a ginormous shark and Jason Statham. The foolproof combination of Statham’s charisma and a ridiculously large CGI shark makes for great, if slightly ironic, viewing.

On to what I would personally consider one of the best movies of the year, never mind just the summer. Hereditary, directed by Ari Aster, was not only the scariest film of the summer, but produced some of the finest performances of the year. Toni Collette and Alex Wolff were outstanding and turned what was already an excellent piece of cinema into one of the most acclaimed horror movies of the 21st century. No matter your expectations, Hereditary will not disappoint.

Two major dramas released this summer were Adrift, a movie inspired by a real life story of a couple sailing to Hawaii who run into a hurricane, and The Children Act, an adaptation of Ian McEwan’s 2014 novel, and each film squandered their enormous potential. Despite an able and nuanced performance from Woodley at the centre, Adrift was unfortunately neither as riveting nor as moving as I’d hoped. As for The Children Act, Emma Thompson the best thing about the film, but McEwan’s writing does not translate well to screen. Despite a very respectable cast that includes Stanley Tucci and Fionn Whitehead alongside Thompson, it failed to be the dramatic masterpiece it wanted to be. Lacking in pace, clarity and plausibility, The Children Act was possibly the most disappointing film of the summer.

On a lighter note, let’s turn our thoughts to this summer’s most popular comedy. The Festival, directed by The Inbetweeners’ Iain Morris and starring Joe Thomas, was a hit with critics and viewers alike. There’s a reason why The Inbetweeners was so successful, and Morris uses the same crude boyish humour to great effect here. Full of cringe moments and hilariously specific gags involving festival fun, it was certainly a huge hit for the teenage audience, Inbetweeners fans or not.

How to: Lecture Note-taking

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How to: Lecture Note-taking

You’re sitting in a cavernous lecture theatre, laptop open in front of you and hands poised above the keys, ready to type. What did the lecturer just say? Shaking your head you stare back over your notes — a second ago they seemed to be talking about something completely different! Maybe you shouldn’t have checked your messages after all. Tuning back into their monologue, you type down everything verbatim, fingers flying 100 miles per hour to catch each syllable. After all, how else will you remember so much information?

Lectures can seem very different to A-level classes when you first arrive at university, and it’s normal to take a couple of weeks to adjust to the change. Everybody has a different way of taking notes, and that’s fine: it’s important that you avoid the situation described above, and find the way that works best for you. To make the first few weeks that bit easier, I’ve compiled a few top tips for taking notes so that those initial lectures are as useful as possible.

Laptops

Most people tend to take notes on their laptops because typing is generally faster than writing. If you’re keen to use your laptop in lectures, then firstly close all of your other tabs. It’s easy to flick onto Facebook for a second and the next thing you know you’re in a full group-chat debrief about what you were doing last night! So close off Messenger, resist the temptation to scroll through Facebook, and actually pay attention to what’s going on. Trust me, I’ve been there.

Once you’re concentrating on the lecture, try not to take down every word that your lecturer says, as you can often end up falling behind. Take concise notes in bullet points rather than paragraphs, and paraphrase where necessary. It’s easier to go back over notes after lectures and flesh sentences out than try to take it all down and accidentally miss the important parts.

If you are typing notes, then it’s always useful to share notes with friends. Unlike at A-level, you’re not competing for the best grades (there are no set percentages of students who will get an A*, but the top grades go to anybody who the university thinks deserves them). Different people will naturally note down different parts of a lecture, so establishing a google drive or emailing notes to people in your subject can help you all out.

Writing

Plenty of people also write notes by hand. If this is our preferred method then buy a refill pad and take your notes here rather than in a notebook — lectures can get moved around, notes can look messy, and it’s often easier to organise a folder than a notebook of jumbled pages. If you’re keen on your notebooks, however, then try to keep a different notebook for each section of the course: that way you won’t get confused.

As with typing your notes, don’t try to take down every word. Pick and choose carefully, and only write down the important parts. This can make your job a lot easier. Alternatively, notes scribbled in lectures can often be pretty scruffy. When I write notes I often rush to write everything down and then type or write them up in neater versions after. This can save the problem of attempting to decipher your own handwriting months later when it comes to exams. The sooner you write your notes up in neat, the better — this way they are fresh in your mind when you do so.

Using lecture slides

Some subjects make the lecture slides available to download in the 24 hours before the lecture begins. This can really useful for note taking because it means that the important parts have already been written down for you. Students who like typing notes often download the slides before the lecture and add anything extra to the comments section under each slide. Others take separate notes on a split screen and use the powerpoint as useful revision aids.

For those of you who like hand-writing notes, it can also be useful to print off the lecture slides and add any extra pieces of information to those by hand. That way it gives you more time to listen to what the lecturer is saying, rather than rushing to take it all down and not concentrating on the content as much. This allows you to get a better understanding of the lecture material because you’re concentrating much harder.

If writing lecture notes seems strange at first, don’t worry about it. Try a few different methods, from typing or writing to printing out the slides, and see what works the best. After a while, taking notes seems like second nature. Just make sure to stay organised and clearly label folders (online or in the flesh) so that none of your notes go missing.

What does Hollywood’s new diversity trend mean for the industry?

Becky Cook
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What does Hollywood’s new diversity trend mean for the industry?

Hollywood in 1930 saw the historic implementation of the Hays Code: an inventory of cinematic restrictions that aimed to ensure the moral integrity of film. This ramshackle list of demands was a mixture of the laughable and the unsettling, featuring restrictions against instances such as relationships between “the white and black races”.  While such an anxiety surrounding miscegenation has since been delineated in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and the horror hit Get Out, the repercussions of these moral guidelines are still felt despite the lapse of its enforcement.

While the dust seems to be settling on the Harvey Weinstein scandal of last year, it prompted a quake in the form of the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements that disturbed the ground beneath the firm feet of the men at the top of the food chain. Now the question remains whether this was a lot of noise, or has resulted in any palpable change in the business, a question that expands beyond the marginalisation of women alone, and strives for a veritable balancing of representation.

A recent UCLA report found that minority groups have a paltry 13.9% representation in film leads, while women hold a mere 31.2% stake. The figures are indisputably low, but the trends in recent film and TV output seems to indicate the industry has decided to inch its skull out from the sand. 

The whispered assertion that ‘black films don’t travel’ between show business heavyweights was hushed by Black Panther earlier this year. It was instantly heralded as a crunch in pop culture for the representation of black identity. The superhero blockbuster was lathered with hype, expectations and interracial optimism. Wakanda became the wistful idyll where audiences could take refuge from the realities of the post-Obama era for a few hours. 

The risk of trumpeting diversity only became apparent months later when A Wrinkle in Time was released. At the time, Mindy Kaling described how the film was a “movement” and Time magazine similarly garnered it with dizzying political expectations. By all accounts, the film is really quite lousy. It currently has a 42% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Black Panther was a superb Marvel film with a hypnotic sound, mood and villain. While both tried to boost representation in Hollywood, only the latter legitimately succeeded, as it maintained artistic value independent of its status as a cause.

A similar phenomenon at the meeting point of the movement and merit occurred with the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters with an all-female cast. The decision was met with venom from fans and the film flopped at the box office. It seemed to audiences that the gender-bending of the iconic original was a gratuitous part of a diversity initiative and this both dominated the narrative and ramped up the expectations for what was a limp project to begin with. 

However, this year’s popular Ocean’s 8, another gender-flipped franchise addition, proved such films are not discounted by audiences simply for being female reboots: quality counts. According to the FBI, male thieves operate in groups, while women are more likely to operate with a boyfriend or alone. Yet, this questionable factual accuracy does not hinder the gang of feisty females that band together to carry out a heist, making larceny look sleek and sexy.  

The gender flipping trend has stirred a substantial amount of conversation, most recently when it was announced Doctor Who would next regenerate in the guise of Jodie Whittaker. Peter Davison, the fifth Doctor, bemoaned the decision as the “loss of a role model for boys”. This blinkered opinion does not seem to merit comment, only serving to distinguish Davison himself as a rather feeble role model for boys or girls.

As Ocean’s 8 showed, the choice not only challenges viewers’ perceptions, but allows women the chance to wrestle with roles typically written for men and make attempts to level the distribution of stories among actors. The recent buzz surrounding the potential casting of Idris Elba as James Bond proved to be a lot of hot air. However, the mere possibility of such a seismic change to the role demonstrates the choices that could be made in order to further relieve greedy white male film stars of the taxing task of choosing from a throng of prime roles while others are left without. 

Fuzzy Ducks moves to Emporium

Aditi Arora
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Fuzzy Ducks moves to Emporium

Oxford’s longest-running club night will be moving from Atik to Emporium, making way for Park End, Atik’s new Wednesday event.

The move came about due to a new partnership between Encore Events, the company responsible for Fuzzy Ducks, and the company that owns Emporium, The Bridge, and TVC.

According to Encore CEO, Toby Beers-Baker, Atik was no longer a suitable venue for Fuzzy Ducks due to the decrease in the number of students going out on Wednesday nights.

Last week, the initial new name of the ATIK Wednesday night, Shark End, was changed to ‘Park End’. Cherwell understands that this switch came after objections from university sports teams.

Beers-Baker told Cherwell: “Emporium is a much better size for the amount of students that go out on a Wednesday night nowadays, as over the last few years Atik would quite regularly have closed/empty rooms.”

He also said that Encore’s lineup for the week will be “much stronger” now their events are being exclusively hosted at venues owned by the same company.

He added: “Fuzzys will remain Fuzzys, as it has in its long history at Atik, Wahoo, The O2, Bath SU, The Carling Academy, and the Zodiac.

“It’s the only brand in Oxford that has always moved venues successfully, and we’ll be taking the mentality, the crowd, the music, the DJs and THE DUCK [sic] with us to Emporium.

“The layout of Emporium allows us to continue to provide different music on the different floors, and Emporium’s VIP area works perfectly as the new captains VIP.”

An all-night reduction in the price of VKs, to £1.50, is the main difference to expect at Fuzzys in the coming term.

A new club night at Atik, Shark End Wednesdays, will replace Fuzzy Ducks from Wednesday of freshers’ week (3 October). Shark End organisers Freddie Goodall and Sam Zappi promise to “shake up Oxford nightlife” with the new event.

The pair told The Tab: “We want Oxford University students to get more back from their night with better content, more exciting acts and an overall better experience than what they are getting currently.

“Change is good, and there will be a great amount of energy being put into the night.

“We like working closely with the students, with sports clubs, societies and entz reps being integral part of our event planning.”

However, reactions to the new event have been mixed, with one Oxfess suggesting a “first week boycott of ‘Shark End’”. The student added: “Wtf is that name is this a joke… #bringbackfuzzies.”

#Oxfess22431Anyone for a 1st week boycott of 'shark end'?Wtf is that name is this a joke…#bringbackfuzzies

Posted by Oxfess on Monday, September 3, 2018

 

Another Oxfess called the name “the least funny joke [they’d] heard all year.”

Sophie Kilminster, a regular attendant of Fuzzy Ducks, said the news had “hit [her] hard”.

She told Cherwell: “The news that Fuzzy Ducks, the shining star of my midweeks, has moved to Emporium, the site of the saddest Valentines-evening I have ever had, has hit me hard. 

“Emporium is a fundamentally flawed club, the circular stage blocking off the tiny amount of fun that could happen in a club that seems to purposely play songs that have never been popular. 

“The replacement of something as wholesome as a Fuzzy Duck with a predator demonstrates how the Oxford club scene is literally being eaten alive by such a terrible change.”

BlacKkKlansman review – Spike Lee’s return to form?

Jonnie Barrow
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BlacKkKlansman review – Spike Lee’s return to form?

From the opening proclamation that “Dis joint is based on some fo’ real, fo’ real sh*t,” Spike Lee’s latest incendiary comedy-drama, BlacKkKlansman, promises to provoke – and succeeds in the most profound fashion.

It follows the true story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), the first black cop in the Colorado Springs police department, who decides to infiltrate the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan. He telephones them to establish contact, but for obvious reasons must be impersonated by a white colleague, Flip Zimmerman (played with typical quiet intensity by Adam Driver), who in turn must hide that he is Jewish as he operates undercover.

It’s a story that is rendered by turns comic and horrifying, as Ron and Flip respond to the manifold intolerances necessary to navigate their mission. Plenty of fun is poked at white supremacists: from a scathing, hilariously inept opening monologue on “white genocide” delivered in a deliciously repulsive cameo by Alec Baldwin to the Tarentino-esque comic mundanities of Ron and Flip’s attempt to gain their KKK membership.

While Ron phones up David Duke himself (played with pitch-perfect polite bigotry by Topher Grace), who ironically claims he can tell Ron is white by the sound of his voice, Flip finds that “ropes and hoods [cost] extra” on top of his membership fees, to which a fellow KKK member interjects: “Fucking inflation.”

Perhaps one of the most surprising elements of BlacKkKlansman is how cineliterate it is, and how Lee uses the history of cinema to inform the film’s thematic poignancy. Lee has transplanted the events of the film from 1979 to 1972 partly in order to capitalise on the imagery and themes of Blaxploitation films from the 60s and 70s, spiking the film with rallying cries for black empowerment.

When contrasted against sparing but powerful invocations of Gone with the Wind and horrifying footage from D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, Lee weaves a complex tapestry that keeps the viewer alert, demonstrating the agency and complicity of cinema and, by extension, the viewing audience, in perpetuating harmful stereotypes of African-Americans through history.

Lee has a lot of fun with the period setting – particularly during a hilarious conversation where three lead characters profess their undying admiration for OJ Simpson – but the setting serves more serious ideas too. Another effect of the film’s slight time shift from the true story’s setting is the concurrent re-election of Nixon, which was widely considered to be aided by support from the Klan.

Subtly placed posters of Nixon throughout the film remind the viewer that tactics such as the Southern Strategy and dog-whistle politics only work if there are swathes of intolerant voters to draw on. This fact is not-so-subtly underscored by reminders that David Duke had serious designs on public office, and on dialogue exchanges that tragi-comically underline how little has changed between Lee’s portrait of 1972 and today.

The film is dedicated to Heather Heyer, a counter-protestor who died during the Charlottesville “Unite The Right” rally last summer. Lee seems to have taken her final Facebook post and made it the mantra around which the whole film is based: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” David Duke in the film talks about what needs to be done “for America to achieve its greatness again”; Ron almost turns to the camera at one point as he says, “America would never elect someone like David Duke President of America.”

Lee’s righteous anger hasn’t diminished over the 30 years he’s been making films; it has simmered in the crucible of systemic injustice long enough for Lee to refine it into a form as seething as it is measured. As in Malcolm X, he ends BlacKkKlansman with a wrecking ball of righteous anger which smashes through the fourth wall and demands that the audience not be lulled into complacency by the film’s period setting.

Drawing a clear line between the white supremacy evident throughout BlacKkKlansman and the neo-Nazi protests we saw a year ago, Lee closes the film with shocking footage from the protest itself, and Trump’s limp condemnation of the violence “on all sides.”

If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.

UK universities issue new suicide prevention guidance

Angus Brown
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UK universities issue new suicide prevention guidance

This article contains reference to suicide.

A new set of suicide-prevention guidelines has been issued to universities at the annual Universities UK (UUK) conference.

The renewed effort to reduce student suicides comes after 95 students at British universities died by suicide in the last academic year.

The conference also laid out new guidelines on the disclosure of confidential data by universities, partly in an effort to increase information sharing between universities and families.

These changes come amidst controversy surrounding restrictions on how universities are allowed to contact families of students at potential risk of suicide.

James Murray, whose son, Ben, died by suicide at Bristol University earlier this year, told the conference that there was “too little sharing” between universities and families. He also argued that universities are “too fixated” on privacy and need to “start giving more priority on information sharing to save lives.”

He said: “If we had had more information maybe we could have intervened, maybe things would have been different.”

Together with the charity Papyrus, UUK has published the new Suicide Safer Universities guide, which includes advice on developing a strategy focused specifically on suicide prevention, covering difficulties, best practice for responding to student suicides and case studies on suicide prevention.

Chief Executive of Papyrus, Nina Clarke, said: “When lives are at risk, normal confidentiality rules can, and should be bypassed.”

Chair of the UUK’s Mental Health Advisory Group, Steve West, added: “When students take their own lives, it has a profound impact on family, friends, staff and students.

“This new guide offers practical advice on understanding and preventing suicide, as well as guidance on how best to support those most affected.

“We urge university leaders to work with their student support services to develop a strategy which focuses on preventing, intervening, and responding to suicide as part of an overall mental health strategy.”

UUK’s new guide also contains steps which university leaders can take to make their communities safer as part of a wider bid to prevent further suicides.

Suicide is one of the most common causes of death for people under 35, with more than 1,600 cases in the UK every year.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article you can ring or make an appointment with the University counselling service:  https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/welfare/counselling – 01865 270300 – [email protected].

Anonymous support services:
Nightline – http://oxfordnightline.org – 8pm to 8am in term time at 01865 270 270;
The Samaritans – http://www.samaritans.org – 01865 722122.

Let’s Talk About: The Year Abroad

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Let’s Talk About: The Year Abroad

I have a confession. This piece is completely different to the one I initially wrote. You see, when it comes to the year abroad, I feel like most articles are either startlingly anxious or very impersonal. Not that there’s anything wrong with being out about the year abroad (it would be untrue to say I’m not), but, equally, fear isn’t my overriding emotion.

Nearly two years ago, when I was asked in my Russian interview how I’d view spending eight months in a country where it’s “very cold, gets dark at three o’clock, and you’re hundred of miles from your family,” I said I thought it would be an adventure. This is still what I think about the year abroad. So when I started writing this, I got two paragraphs in, and then realised I wasn’t writing what I actually thought about the year abroad. I was writing what other people wrote about it.

It’s now less than a month to go until I leave to spend eight months in a town called Yaroslavl’, north of Moscow, in Russia. This means that while my Oxford friends are only really halfway through the vac, I’m nearing the end of mine – frantically doing admin, making packing lists, and buying those last few things I’ll need. Somehow, I’ve got to get everything I need for eight months in Russia into a 23kg suitcase and hand luggage, and I’ve got a frankly silly number of packing lists.

So why am I going to Yaroslavl’? I’m on the ab initio Russian course (my other language is German), and our year abroad is in second year rather than the normal third year, which means by the time we get back we are, in theory, caught up to the post A-Level students. We go to Yaroslavl’ to study a course designed especially for Oxford students, which is pretty similar to the first year post A-Level course.

This will involve literature, translation, grammar, vocab, and, of course, we will be speaking Russian 24/7. We will have to deal with things like paying rent, taking public transport, and talking to our host families in this still unfamiliar language. Hopefully this will improve my Russian beyond what I’ve managed to plough through in first year. My conversational skills are still limited to fairytales and biographies of composers and writers, thanks to the slightly odd Oxford syllabus, but soon I will be able to have a proper conversation.

I feel like so often, the year abroad is seen as a big, scary hurdle in a degree; something to be overcome, especially since people normally go in third year, when their friends are graduating. For me, this image is significantly lessened by it being in second year. I’ve always enjoyed speaking different languages in other countries, and the year abroad was part of my motivation for doing my degree anyway. Whilst that means that this hasn’t made for a particularly sensational read, it feels kind of refreshing to write about the opposite side of what I’ve always read about the year abroad, and what I believe a good chunk of students about to take flight are really thinking.

First Auditions: Getting Involved in Performing Arts at Oxford

Alice Blinkhorn
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First Auditions: Getting Involved in Performing Arts at Oxford

Like many freshers, I was eager to try something new at Oxford. I had always been interested in drama, but never quite had the confidence to actively get involved. The opportunity to try acting came in Michaelmas, in the form of Drama Cuppers. If there’s any chance you might be interested in theatre at Oxford, I would really recommend taking part in your college’s performance. There are lots of roles available, including directing, sound and lighting, promotion, and acting. It was my first experience of working on a proper, collaborative production and, from then on, I knew that I wanted to stay involved with the Oxford drama scene.

I signed up for the official OUDS newsletter at the Freshers’ Fair, where most auditions are advertised. Every week, an email is published which gives a brief overview of all the productions that are casting, and how to arrange an audition. Usually, the director requests that you prepare something for the audition; often, you will have a choice of extracts from the play (if it’s a musical production, you might have to prepare a song). These are generally about two minutes long. It’s worth thinking about what kind of piece will best demonstrate your skills, especially if the director offers you a choice of audition pieces. Choose wisely!

My first audition came later in Michaelmas. It was at a huge college, in a tiny room, across the quad, past the gardens, though a couple of archways, up the stairs, and tucked away on the right. Unsurprisingly, I ended up getting horribly lost and arriving very, very late. Not a good start (although the director was very understanding). As a result, by the time I arrived, I felt pretty tense. Make sure you know where your audition is before you set out for it, and don’t be afraid to ask the porters for directions once you get to the college!

Generally, in an audition, you’ll perform your monologue or the extract you’ve prepared (somebody else will read the other part if it’s a dialogue). After you’ve performed your chosen piece, you might be asked to do it again, but with directions. The director wants to see how you respond to their guidance. For example, in my first audition, I was asked to perform the monologue second time ‘as if I was saying it to my younger sister’. On another occasion I had to try and use as much of the space in the room as possible. In every audition I’ve been to, there’s also been a ‘cold read’. You are given a piece of the script, a brief overview of where it fits into the play, and then asked to perform it. You usually have time to read it through a few times first. Again, you might be asked to perform it a second or third time with prompts from the director. At the end of the audition, you’ll have the chance to ask any burning questions.

I have a contemporary monologue and a Shakespearean one that I know really thoroughly, and one of those normally serves me well if the director doesn’t ask for anything more specific. Performing a monologue I’m really comfortable with immediately boosts my confidence, so it’s worth working hard on a couple of different pieces and keeping them in your arsenal. It goes without saying that it’s best to know your audition piece by heart: not only does it help you to act more naturally, but it also shows suggests that you’re prepared to dedicate your time to their production. That said, it’s fine to bring a paper copy with you just to peek at if necessary – I always feel a bit more relaxed if I have it with me, even if I don’t need it. It’s handy to take a paper copy to your audition anyway, because often the director will want to take a look at it before they give you some prompting.

Lastly, don’t be disappointed if you don’t hear back. There are loads of plays, musicals and concerts put on in Oxford, and it might be a while before you find something you’re suited to. I’ve been involved in a wide variety of productions – from an ancient Greek comedy to a modern dystopia – and I’ve made lots of new friends through drama. Don’t give up!

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